Here we are, back again for another look at what has been happening on the currency front for the first full week in March. Will the pound have done well or will it have slipped back on the currency converter? Let’s see.
An overview of the currency markets for March 7th – March 11th 2011
1.6265 was the closing rate for the pound versus the US dollar for the previous week. Now we have to see whether the pound can improve on that.
It certainly did on day one of the fresh week, with the pound improving marginally to 1.6292. But as it turned out things would not get any better than that for the entire week. Once the week was over the pound had gone down below the 1.60 point, settling on a disappointing 1.5992 in the process.
Could we do any better than that against the Euro though? Last time we had a closing rate of 1.1654, so this was the figure we were hoping to improve on. We had a similar seesaw time though, with the initial change going to 1.1614. The high point came on Thursday as the pound managed to get an exchange rate of 1.1674. But that was lost by Friday night as we finished off the week on 1.1611.
Next comes the pound against the Hong Kong dollar. Here we began with a rate of 12.670 but it wasn’t long before the bad news came pouring in. The best part of the week came early on Monday night, when the pound improved slightly to 12.687. After that it was all bad news and eventually we saw how disappointing the week was turning out to be. We finished up with a closing rate on Friday night of 12.461.
But this was clearly not a good week for the British pound, because it fairly struggled against the New Zealand dollar as well. We started strongly with an opening rate of 2.2102 on the cards. But just two days in, we were on the ropes with a rate of 2.1839 instead. This didn’t look good and indeed things got a lot worse before Friday night stopped the rot by ushering in the weekend. Finally we ended on a disappointing 2.1688.
Finally we have the Australian dollar to look at. The starting rate was 1.6072 but although once again the general trend was down, things were not quite as bad here. We didn’t see any huge drops and by the end of the week we had stalled the rot and stopped on 1.5986.
Notable events in the world of currency
Hong Kong dollar rises marginally against the Aussie dollar
There was a small appreciation here from 0.1268 to 0.1282 overall, which was good news for Hong Kong.
US dollar has an interesting time against the Japanese yen
This was a rocky road as well, and perhaps Friday’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan had an effect too. The rate dipped from 82.847 to 82.218.
But the US dollar does better against the Euro
Here there was better news, as the US dollar climbed from 0.7164 to 0.7260 over the course of the week.
News regarding various areas of the currency markets and of the effects of the quake in Japan was seen on the Bloomberg site among other news sites last week. This is something we shall no doubt be reading a lot more about over the next few days and weeks, and perhaps longer as well.
So it was a poor week for the pound in all, after what turned out to be a good week the week before. It was a shame to see the pound fall so steadily against all the other currencies we usually look at, but perhaps it will do better again next week. We can but hope that we are able to see better results soon.
It’s horrible to think about the effects of the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear worries on the exchange rates with the yen. But at the same time I suppose it is a fact of life that these things happen. It seems horrible that some people will no doubt take advantage of it and make a profit off the changes in the exchange rates. But I suppose that’s life and it is bound to happen, isn’t it?